BJP absorbs some collateral damage from Sobha’s disclosure about the role of political fixers in party affairs

The BJP appeared to have absorbed some collateral damage in the aftermath of Sobha Surendran’s “give the game away disclosure“ about her party’s “entrenched efforts to woo“ LDF convener E. P. Jayarajan to the NDA fold. 

The BJP appeared to have absorbed some collateral damage in the aftermath of Sobha Surendran’s “give the game away disclosure“ about her party’s “entrenched efforts to woo“ LDF convener E. P. Jayarajan to the NDA fold. 

A section of the BJP’s State leadership appeared miffed that Ms Surendran had cast the party’s attempt to enhance its bipartisan appeal, bolster its top ranks and erase the “Hindutva slur” in a poor light by accentuating the outsize role of an alleged political fixer.  

Ms. Surendran had stirred the pot at a post-poll press conference in Alappuzha last week by following up on KPCC president K Sudhakaran’s politically tempestuous election-day claim that the BJP’s Kerala in-charge, Prakash Javadekar, had met Mr Jaryarajan through the good offices of a political fixer. Ms Surendan claimed she was also part of the BJP’s covert negotiations to win over Mr Jayarajan. 

Mr. Javadekar, under whose watch the BJP claimed Congress’s scalp by reeling in Anil K. Antony and Padmaja Venugopal, both scions of two powerful Congress families in Kerala, has not, somewhat ominously, responded to Ms Surendran’s “let the cat out of the bag” statement. 

The “discontent” with Ms Surendran’s ‘ill-considered expose’ seemed manifest in a scathing Facebook post by the BIP State vice-president, P. Raghunath. 

He said the BJP did not need the favour of any dubious middleman to attract the public to the party.  Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s good governance was a magnet enough. 

Mr. Reghunath cautioned that hobnobbing with powerbrokers would not bode well for public figures. The BJP had an organisational ethos and an unwavering, time-tested methodology for enlisting supporters.